EDITORIAL: Back-room dealings

All those tech billionaires and gig-economy millennials rushing to support the Democratic Party might want to consider what happened last week in New York.

While today’s young adults make their consumer preferences clear by patronizing pioneering oufits such as Uber or Airbnb, progressive politicians do their best to harass — or even shut down — such companies.

Uber’s hurdles are well known. The ride-sharing enterprise has been forced to fight entrenched taxi cartels in city after city and state after state — cartels often emboldened by the support of Democrat lawmakers distrustful of consensual economic transactions.

To this date, Airbnb’s battles haven’t been as widely publicized. But last week, New York lawmakers came crashing down on the company, which helps property owners lease rooms or homes to visitors for a few days at a time. The Empire State Legislature, dominated by Democrats, approved a measure that will outlaw the practice in many instances and impose hefty financial penalties on homeowners hoping to make a few extra bucks by providing lodging to a traveler.

“It’s baffling to us that in this time of economic inequality that folks would be looking to impose fines of as much as $7,5000 on a middle-class person looking to use the home that they live in to help make ends meet,” a company official told The Associated Press.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo put his signature on the bill.

“The complicated rules mean many New Yorkers may not know whether they can legally rent out their homes,” the AP reported. As of August, Airbnb listed 45,000 rentals in New York City and 13,000 across the rest of the state.

The company vowed to challenge the new rules in court and wasn’t shy about calling the legislation exactly what it is: Rent seeking dressed up as consumer protection and neighborhood preservation.

“In typical fashion, Albany back-room dealing rewarded a special interest, the price-gouging hotel industry, and ignored the voice of thousands of New Yorkers,” said Josh Meltzer, Airbnb’s head of public policy in New York.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, another Democratic champion of the bloated regulatory state, told the AP he would aggressively contest any effort to overturn the law.

At some point, perhaps the tech industry and millennials will take notice of the fact that politicians who embrace the entrepreneurship, innovation and freedom that characterize the gig economy are often the same ones who advocate for free markets and regulatory relief. And those aren’t usually the politicians with a “D” next to their names.